


My Spirit Doesn't Move Like it Did Before

by Katowisp



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing in Action, Steve Feels, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 15:34:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18034394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katowisp/pseuds/Katowisp
Summary: Coda to Infinity War. The remaining Avengers watch the ceremony of the dead in Wakanda.





	My Spirit Doesn't Move Like it Did Before

Steve was sitting on a broken ruin of what had been a glorious city. His feet dangled over the sides of a crater, remnants of the battlefield. Below him, the broken spires of the city glittered in the setting sun, and he squinted into the despair of the wasted country before him. Wakanda had mobilized her tribes to remove the dead from the battlefield. It was not as hard as it should have been; Thanos had handled most of it. 

That night, they planned to honor T’Challa and the missing even though there were no bodies. 

A thousand funeral pyres with no one on them. (A billion. More, the whole world over.)

Hearing footfalls behind him, Steve turned to see T’challa’s sister (Shuri, he recalled. Bucky had thought highly of her), approach him, a dark bottle in her hand. She wore ceremonial robes that were as dramatic as the other clothes he had seen the Wakandan’s wear, but the colors were dampened, and her face was a study in stoicism. It wasn’t because she was emotionless, but because if she let her façade crumble, the deluge of emotions would break the dam. 

Once a dam breaks, it takes a long time and a lot of work to replace it. 

Best not to let it break at all. 

Steve knew that look well. 

“Will you come to the ceremony tonight?” She settled beside him. Their feet dangled over the crater. The world around them was beautiful, in a broken way. It hadn’t understood the snap, and the wind continued to blow over grassy plains and whisper through the distant trees. The evening creatures sung a mournful song, looking for their lost mates.

“I have attended the death of my best friend too many times already,” Steve said, watching the sunset, because he could not watch her. She had lost her brother and many friends, and he knew that if he met her eyes, he would not be stoic any longer. 

“You are a complicated man,” she replied, also staring straight ahead. If Steve had chanced a glance at her, he would have seen that her eyes were furrowed as she blinked back tears. 

Neither were as stoic as they tried to be, but Steve had better practice. 

“No, I am a man of sorrow, and there is nothing complicated about that.” 

Shuri nudged over the bottle of indeterminate liquid. “This is our strongest stuff. We reserve it for times of sorrow.” 

He grasped the dark bottle, the liquids sloshing inside. “Thank you.” 

“You had a strange relationship with my brother. He wanted to kill you and the one with the arm, but instead, you became his friends. He was not always a wise man when it came to his friends, but he was true.”

Steve uncorked the bottle and took a swig. It had a strange, almost sweet flavor, and he enjoyed the burn against his throat. He handed it back, and she repeated the action. “He was one of the best men I ever met.” 

“In Wakanda,” she continued, “we have many rituals for the dead. But all of them involve a body, and there are none. I just got my brother back. Last time, we had a body, at least. I new I would see him again, on our ancestral planes.” Shuri’s face crumpled for a moment, and Steve looked away. In the distance, there was keening as the funeral rights began.

“I did my best.” Steve said, in little more than a whisper, staring out at the battlefield. He had always done his best, from the very beginning. And for a while, doing his best meant something. 

She stared at him for a long time, her emotions clouding her face. He could see the things she wanted to say— _it wasn’t good enough_ and _You could’ve tried harder_ and maybe what bothered her most, _I miss my brother and I don’t know what to do without him._

But neither of them said anything at all. The song of missing rose in crescendo as bereft night creatures realized they were alone. 

And then, finally: 

“I have to attend, my mother waits for me. We have lost so much.” She clambered off the side of the crater and looked down at him. He finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t understand this war, or why we were dragged into it.”

“I’m sorry.” He said, as if it would mean something. Thanos had been coming for them anyway. Half of them would have died regardless, and had the battle not been waged in Wakanda, then they would have lost half their population and not even known why. But explaining this didn’t matter, because it didn’t lessen the hurt or repair their broken spires.

Shuri had advanced a few paces before she paused. “I think I retained enough of your electronic friend to bring him back. He’s in my lab.”

Steve sat on the edge of the crater and watched the funeral rights from afar. The bonfires and singing lit up the sky long after the sun had set, but he was reluctant to join the acute loss of a culture he only knew in passing. 

Natasha’s steps were light on the ground, and Steve felt her presence before he heard her. She was a spider’s step, all whisper and fog, and Steve had grown to know it well. “Natasha.” He said, and she chuckled, and settled in beside him, closer than Shuri had been. There was a bottle in her hands. “Oh, you have one too. It’s good.” 

Steve stared at the bottle before looking up at his teammate. Here, the lights of man unfettered the stars, and they provided enough light that he could see Natasha’s face in their silver glow. Not for the first time, he appreciated her beauty. 

The Milky Way was distant and brilliant. 

They sat in companionable silence, watching the funerals in the distance. In the stark orange light of the fires, they could see the elaborate dancing by the women as the men drummed and sang. Steve didn’t understand the words, but he understood the feeling behind the wailing of the women. 

“I’m sorry about Bucky and Sam.” Natasha said, after they had finished the first bottle. Some of the lines her face had eased with the liquor. She gave Steve an earnest look. 

“I have lost him before,” Steve took a drink from the bottle, because it was easier than acknowledging her.

“But not like this.” She leaned in closer, her breath warm on his neck. Steve missed the feeling of a woman. 

“No, not like this.” 

Even when he fell off the train, it hadn’t been like this. He had known that body of Bucky was out there and somehow that was better than having him be ash. 

When she intertwined her fingers in his, he was grateful for the connection to another human, on a planet that was now half as full as before. 

Thor’s raucous laughter heralded his arrival, and he stumbled onto the edge of the crater with his animal friend that Steve had only seen briefly. “Steve! Natasha! I am happy to find you here! You have met my friend, Rabbit, I think.”

“Rocket.” The small animal growled, but he was grinning at the Norse god. 

They both carried a bottle of the same liquor Steve had, and from the way they were weaving towards them, had enjoyed a lot of it already. “Hey, careful,” Steve’s brows shot up as Thor teetered over the edge before plopping beside him. Rabbit--no, Rocket, continued standing beside Thor. He was just about eye level, now that they were all sitting. Thor pulled him down beside him. “Don’t loom, it’s odd.” The god commanded. “Nobody likes looming. My brother always loomed.” 

The mirth faded from Thor’s face until Rocket elbowed him. “I’m three feet tall, I don’t loom. Now Groot—Groot could loom. Especially when I got the damn machine out of his hands. I never met such an idiot teenager. Would just loom over me until I gave it back.”

“Groot?” Natasha echoed. She made to move away, but Steve squeezed her hand. She shot him a look, but stayed.

“His tree friend,” Thor provided. “We adventured together.”

“My tree friend,” Rocket sighed. “You never met him when he was a proper tree.” 

“Huh,” Natasha said. “I’ve never met a tree before.”

“He looked like a tree to me,” Steve said, because he had seen Groot in action, and it was impressive. He still didn’t know what to make of it. He wished, deeply, that he could talk about the existence of an alien tree with Bucky. 

There was so much left unsaid between them. When Steve had realized his friend hadn’t died, he was ecstatic to tell him all of the things he had meant to say. He was resolved to wait until Bucky had begun healing. He had thought, at last, they had the time together they hadn’t had before. He would use it wisely. 

“Well, he was a real tree before, until he died rescuing us, and then he rerooted as a seedling. I helped raise him from a little tyke.” Rocket clinked his bottle against Thor’s, before taking a swig. Thor repeated the action. Natasha and Steve shared a look, before clinking their bottles and drinking to the memory of Groot, the Sapling that had been a Tree. 

“He was a good friend.” Rocket said, when he put the bottle back down. He wiped the alcohol from his whiskers. 

“And to my brother. He was a good brother, except when he wasn’t, which was a lot of the time.” Thor’s brow furrowed. “But when he was good, he was great. And he was great, when it mattered--most of the time. It’s complicated.” He trailed off, spinning the neck of the bottle between his hands.

“What was his name?” Rocket pressed.

“Loki,” Thor answered, staring down at the Wakandans. 

“To Loki,” Rocket raised his bottle. “The sometimes best brother that ever was.” He clinked his bottle against Thor’s, and took another swig. Steve and Natasha echoed the action. 

After several more toasts, Natasha said, “I have met all sorts of men, but I have never met a raccoon before.”

“I have met many redheads before.” Rocket leered at Natasha. “Maybe I can meet one more tonight?” The raccoon waggled his brows. 

“Natasha, was that a giggle?” Thor roared, his face breaking into a smile. Natasha grinned back at him, and it was one of her real smiles. 

Steve felt something ease in his chest, if only briefly. 

“Steve, are you blushing?” Natasha asked coyly. She nudged him, and stayed close. 

“Is somebody trying to make a move on my girl?” Bruce came up from the darkness. “I bring gifts.” He passed out several bottles of fresh alcohol down before settling on Natasha’s other side. Steve felt her move away from him slightly, and he tensed. He was not ready to address the feelings in his heart. 

“Banner,” He said with more warmth than he felt. Steve frowned down at the bottle in his hands. He knew he should be grateful to see any friends at all. 

“Banner!” Thor said with enthusiasm. “I am happy you’ve joined us! 

“It’s good to see you.” Bruce smiled at them before he continued with slightly less enthusiasm. “I wasn’t sure who was left. Have you heard from Tony?” 

“I haven’t.” Thor said, and Rocket said, “Who?”

“A friend of ours.” Banner said. “I’m Bruce, by the way.” He paused. “The green guy,” he added after a beat, when the raccoon continued to stare at him. 

“Ohhhhh.” Rocket nodded. “You’re badass. Quill would be impressed. We have a green friend, too. More than friends, for Quill.” He leered, and then the expression faded and the raccoon stared out at the fields below. “We had. I don’t know anymore.” 

“We once believed that our fallen headed to the halls of Valhalla until Ragnarök,” Thor spoke up, the bottle next to him empty. He grabbed one of the ones Bruce had brought. “Did their souls disappear too, when Thanos snapped his fingers? Are they gone forever?” There was no toast this time, and he took a long drink. “Death wasn’t so bad, when I knew I would see my friends again.”

Nobody answered. The air was still around them. In the distance, the fires were dying as the Wakndans finished their rituals. The night had fallen silent around them, as if the creatures realized a silent death had come for their friends and lovers, and might come for them, too. 

“We will find him, and we will kill him.” Steve said, watching the dying fires below. He had never been bent on vengeance before, and he understood Tony’s position now better than he had before. He could not appreciate the death of Tony’s parents by Bucky’s hands, because it had not been Bucky, and because Steve had lost his parents seventy years ago. It had been a culmination of loss, and one he had seen coming. He couldn’t understand why Tony couldn’t just see that the man that killed his parents hadn’t been Steve’s best friend. He hadn’t understood the rage that had driven both Tony and T’challa. When Bucky had died the first time, it had been in the War, and it hadn’t made the loss easier, and he had never forgiven himself, but in those days, he lost friends to the war every day. 

He had never expected to get Bucky back. It had reopened wounds that had never closed as well as they should have. When he saw Bucky, decades after he thought he had died, his first thought had been, “I can tell him all the things I never had the chance to tell him before.”

But he hadn’t gotten the chance, after all. 

“Killing him won’t bring them back. We need the gauntlet,” Rocket said. “We need the gauntlet.” He repeated, as if wishing for it would make it materialize. 

“How do we get it?” Thor asked, looking up at the stars. They twinkled impassively above him. Thanos had changed the number of creatures in the universe, but he had not changed the stars. “Everyone I knew that could get us anywhere is dead. Or worse.”

“How can you erase a soul,” Banner asked rhetorically. “It denies the laws of physics. ‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed.’” 

“Why are we left? Groot deserved it more than me. He saved us. I only ever started trouble.” Rocket sighed, “He was my best friend.”

“Have a drink.” Thor offered a bottle to Rocket, shaking it at the alien when he was slow to respond. The raccoon stared at the drink before he took it reluctantly. Quietly, he lay back on the burned grass and stared up at the empty, full sky.

“The first time, I never expected to get him back. When I did—“ he trailed off. “I thought we had all the time in the world left.” He added quietly, after a long time. “It was okay that he was just a dumb kid. He was still my friend.” 

Steve, who did not know Rocket very well, felt his heart curdle. He thought he might die from the pain of it.

He wished he could. 

Beside him, Natasha intertwined her fingers in his once more. When he looked at her, she did not look back, but squeezed his hand. 

“We will find him, and we will kill him, and we will take the gauntlet back.” Thor said, but his words were laced with uncertainty. 

“We will,” Steve repeated, with as much assuredness as he could muster. He had time to burn, and a mission to accomplish. 

He had failed Bucky once before. He would not fail him again. 

And if he died in the trying well, he would be free, at last.

**Author's Note:**

> Regret.


End file.
